I Believe You
by geekyclassic
Summary: Caroline has a secret to keep. Unfortunately someone wants her to tell and they'll do anything to get her to talk, including kidnapping. One shot.


**Hello Everyone! This is my first FF ever. Feedback is greatly appreciated. I apologize for any grammatical errors, I don't have a beta. Obviously I don't own TVD. I also only watch TVD on Netflix, so I haven't seen any of S5 or S1 of TO, so this story my not be canon compliant after S4 of TVD.**

**I Believe You**

25 years is a long time to keep a secret.

She'd be damned if a few vervain ropes and strategically placed stakes would get her to break her promise, her vow, to never betray his confidence. Not about this.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She could feel the sweat and blood running down her body, slowly, steadily dropping to the concrete floor beneath her. Caroline couldn't remember a time she'd been so overheated. She likely hadn't been since she'd turned. Vampires simply didn't feel hot and cold the way humans did.

But even in her enhanced state, her body could not fail to react to the putrid, humid air in her dingy cell. The air hung around her, thick and inescapable. It drew every bit of moisture out of her body, draining her of energy.

Hanging by her arms from shackled chains wasn't helping either. She felt as if her arms were being slowly pulled out of her sockets as each hour ticked by.

72 hours now.

72 hours of hanging. 72 hours since she'd felt the sun on her face, caught the smell of paint in the air, or the taste of blood on her tongue.

_But not for much longer._ Caroline thought to herself. _I am not the baby vampire who gets tortured and helplessly waits to be rescued. Not anymore._

The door of her cell creaked, slowly opening as a young vampire with long raven hair walked in carrying a small tray with a glass and a syringe. Caroline raised her head agonizingly slowly and met his eyes.

"Please" she whispered, voice quivering "Please let me go. I…" tears trickled down her cheeks "I don't know anything, I swear. There's been some mistake." Caroline let the sobs overcome her body, shaking helplessly, her head dropping low as tears slide from her closed eyes.

The smell of the young vampire's cologne hits her nose and Caroline opens her eyes very slightly, watching as he approaches her and begins to unlock the shackle around her right wrist. He smells of fresh air and aftershave. And blood. Her eyes fix on the pulse point at his throat and she imagines how he will taste on her tongue: warm, coppery, rejuvenating.

Caroline pushes her bloodlust down and focuses on the plan.

72 hours of torture is not ideal. But it she needed time to find the pattern in her captor's behaviour. Time to find the weak spot.

He, this boy, younger than her, a true baby vampire, he is the weakness.

The man who tortures her, with his caramel skin and saccharine smile, is not weak. He is like a billboard model: an airbrushed exterior, smooth, shiny and perfect, distracting from a soulless interior. He wants the information he believes she has, but he will not care if she dies, bleeding and alone. Caroline does not cry in front of him. She does not scream and she does not speak. Not one word. She simply looks him in the eye after each of his questions, each of his demands, and smirks.

She hopes he recognizes that smirk. She learned it from a master.

She hopes it conveys everything she wants it to: _Is that all you've got?_ _I've seen worse, I've had worse. I'm feeling…bored…by your unimaginative torture techniques._

Sometimes, when he gets particularly upset and he stabs closer to her heart than she can bare to think, she stops smirking and simply closes her eyes. She lets his demands, his incessant questions, _"Where is the girl? What has he done with her? Tell me!", _wash over her like waves.

And she remembers.

* * *

_A man. A man of control, of power. Standing in front of her door looking lost. Looking helplessly confused. Fighting it every step of the way. Desperate for her help, unable to admit he needs it, demanding it instead._

_A girl. Beautiful, bright, full of potential. Brown curls brushing her forehead, inching toward stormy eyes of blue grey. Perfect little hands and chubby cheeks, with just a hint of the dimples that will grace them later._

_How could she say no?_

_Raspberry kisses and giggles. Happy shrieks and peek-a-boo. First steps, tumbles and tears._

_Flutes of champagne and long glances. Soft jazz and dancing in the moonlight. Paint on canvas and whispered promises._

_Enemies and threats. Solemn vows. A tearful, heart wrenching goodbye._

* * *

No the man who tortures her is not weak. He has purpose. He wants revenge. He wants to take something, anything, from the man who took so much from him.

Caroline dismissed him as her means of escape within the first few hours. The second man is of no use either. He hovers outside the door as the first man tortures her, she can see the shadow of his footsteps pacing and pausing through the crack under the door. He enjoys seeing her. Seeing her hurt. Seeing her bleed. _Psychopath._

When the first man leaves he enters the room and stares, like he is hypnotized by the sight in front of him.

There is only one other man who ever looked at her with such intensity, such attention to detail. But it was nothing like this. She would give anything to have the other man gaze at her now, with his eyes full of longing.

Caroline refuses to watch the psychopath as he watches her. She tried to match his gaze the first time he entered, but the glow of desire and arousal in his eyes made her stomach turn and her skin crawl.

Once he touched her. Running his fingers along her arm, in the blood running from her wrist down to her torso. And then he licked her.

Caroline has been so revolted, she had vomited. She felt a small sense of satisfaction that she had turned her head and puked right on him, down his shirt, making him freeze on the spot. She had taken that moment of distraction to gather all her strength and kick him in the balls. Shocked, and in no small amount of pain, he had immediately turned and left the room.

He doesn't touch her anymore. But he looks. And she refuses to look back. She waits and counts the seconds until he leaves.

That is the pattern. The torturer comes to visit her for several hours, the psychopath looks, the torturer returns, the psychopath looks again. She is left alone, for what feels like hours, hanging and waiting. And then the boy comes. She is sure the boy comes in the height of the day and that the torturer and the psychopath come in the night. The boy, the baby vampire, has no daylight ring, the torturer and the psychopath do. And no sunlight reaches her cell.

The boy comes in and out during the day. He gives her water to drink. He injects her with vervain, once when he first arrives in the morning and once before he leaves in the evening. He releases her from her bonds after each injection, leaves the room and gives her a few moments to use a bucket in the corner of the room.

But most importantly he sees her. He pities her. He sees a beautiful young woman, abused and broken. And he feels shame and guilt for his part in it all. Caroline can all but smell it on him.

He steals glances at her: her hair, her wounds, her breasts. He touches her softly when he unbinds her wrists, he cradles her in his arms and gently picks her up from the ground to restrain her once again. He flinches ever so slightly when she groans in pain as her wrists are re-shackled. He paces faster outside as she sobs alone in the cell and he stops moving all together when she calls, begs, prays for someone to help her.

Caroline knows it has been eating away at him. He held out well the first day and most of the second day. But now he is on her side, although he does not know it yet.

Caroline hisses in pain each time he re-shackles her, keeping her limbs limp, showing him how weak she is, and he no longer attaches them as tightly. When she pleads for more water, he gives in and brings her more, staying by her side to hold the glass as she slowly drinks it down. He shakes when he injects the vervain and she screams, writhing in agony, her body spasming as she hangs by the chains.

And this morning, he forgets. This morning Caroline pleads with him, desperately seeking release.

"Please let me go… There's been a mistake" her voice sounds pathetic, defeated and small.

He approaches her and his scent hits her nostrils. Peeking through the slits of her eyelids, Caroline sees the needle of vervain lying on the tray on the floor. His hands, empty, reach up for her shackles and begin to unbind her. One wrist is released.

"Water…please." She murmurs, barely loud enough for him to hear.

She feels him pause, hesitating.

Then he moves away, his back to her, walking toward the tray.

Caroline bites down on her lip, reaches up with her free hand and jerks and twists quickly at her other hand. She feels a bone snap in her hand and she pulls down, wrenching her hand from the shackle.

Silently she flashes over to the boy, now bent over the tray, and snaps his neck. Then she looks down at him, staring at his neck, letting her bloodlust fill her, feeling her fangs descend, and rips into his neck.

* * *

Caroline pauses after feeding on the young vampire. He had quite a bit of blood in his system, thankfully, and no vervain. _Idiot._

She thinks back to baby vampire Caroline, the naïve girl she'd been 25 years ago, and knows her former self would be shocked to see the woman she is now. Standing over another vampire she had just feed on and almost bled dry, feeling no remorse.

A couple of decades in the supernatural world changes you. She now understands things are not black and white, good versus evil. Everyone and everything is shaded grey, even her. And what's most important for her at this moment is that she stay alive, get the hell out of here and keep the secret safe.

During his last visit her torturer threatened to bring in a witch who could force her to tell the truth. And although she had sat back and given him her very best smirk, Caroline wasn't about to take any chances. She knew how some witches could mess with your mind and sense of reality.

Caroline sits back and assesses her current situation. Her stab wounds are healing, as are her wrists. She can feel the strength returning to her muscles as the fresh blood courses through her body. She stripped her latest meal of his plaid shirt to cover her bloodied sundress and sticks the syringe full of vervain into the pocket.

Stopping by the door, Caroline opens it smoothly to avoid any creaking. Holding her breath, she listens with her vampire hearing: no heartbeats, no voices, one set of footsteps. Not close, down the hall to her right.

Stepping out of her cell Caroline instinctively holds her breath and flashes to the right. In the milliseconds it takes for her to reach her target, she notes that it is a lean man with his back to her, sitting in a chair by a door at the end of the hall. He never even noticed her coming. Snapping his neck was easy.

And as if fate wanted her to escape with no issues, the man had her daylight ring hanging on a chain around his neck.

_Maybe they're all idiots._ She ripped the chain off his neck happily slipped her ring back on her finger. As she let me go, his body slid limply off the chair and onto the floor.

Unfortunately her actions had unforeseen consequences.

An alarm blared loudly over some type of speaker system, Caroline could hear a multitude of footsteps moving in the building above her, and the door in front of her popped open with a bang.

_Seriously? So much for my perfect escape plan._

Caroline braces herself, sinking into a crouch, quickly breaking the legs off the chair beside her. Then, she charges through the door, a makeshift stake in each hand.

The first obstacle was the light. It streams in from windows and blinds her instantly. Despite her loss of vision, Caroline continues forward, doggedly determined to push toward freedom.

She doesn't see the first body that reaches her, but she senses it: the smell of sweat and fear, the sound of frantic footsteps rushing toward her.

As she flashes forward, snapping necks, flipping attackers and staking her captors, she is thankful for the past 25 years. Thankful that she has learned to be ruthless when she needs to be. Grateful that someone cared enough about her safety to take the time to coax her into using her vampire abilities to their fullest, and put in the effort to teach her how to fight.

'_Use your momentum'_ his voice echoes in her mind_. 'Keep them off balance.'_

Eyesight returning, she watches briefly as her latest opponent falls pathetically, legs broken, unable to stand.

'_You were the head cheerleader, correct? If you aren't stronger, be faster, smarter and more agile. Use some of those splits and flips.'_

Caroline puts his advice to good use, flipping over her opponent, and staking him in the back.

Blood is dripping from the last stake Caroline has left. Adrenalin pumps through her body. Her eyes set on the two hulking vampires between her and a six foot tall window at the end of the hall in front of her. She can hear rustling behind her, as the other attackers behind her begin to recover from the wounds.

Caroline has used her wits, her speed and her agility. It's time to do the unexpected and get the hell out of dodge.

She takes a few slow steps toward the hulking men at the end of the hall, then she surges, flashing as fast as she can. As she approaches both men, she can sense them reacting to her flash. Gripping the stake in one hand and her vervain syringe in the other, she jerks her arms outward with great precision. Both men tumble, one with the syringe in his neck and the other with a stake in his jugular.

Not stopping in her flash to look behind her, Caroline charges through the window in front of her, feeling the glass splinter and fly, tearing into her skin as she flies out of the building. The impact of her fall reverberates through her body and Caroline could swear she hears her bones crunch together in her knees and ankles.

Ignoring the pain, Caroline pushes herself, refusing to slow her pace. Ahead of her she can see a car and there is nothing and no one between her and her ride out of here.

Caroline feels her muscles protesting her efforts, her vision is beginning to narrow and she can hear the ragged sound of her breathing. She huffs and puffs needlessly, but instinctively, as the she gets closer and closer to the car.

Just as her hand reaches for the door handle of the sleek black BMW, a bang rings out, her body lurches forward and she falls to her knees, pain blossoming in her left shoulder.

"You won't get far." The confident voice of her torturer rings out behind her.

Caroline peeks up at the wing mirror above her. She can see her torturer standing on the balcony of a large house behind her. He is holding a large rifle.

Refusing to give him a chance for a second shot, Caroline wrenches the driver's side door with her good arm and dives into the car. Shots ring out and shatter the glass above her head. Caroline remains huddled in front of the driver's seat, ripping open the panel below the steering wheel and pulling out wires.

Caroline knew that one day her secret passion of watching 'Gone in 60 Seconds' would come in handy. _'You just never know when you might have to hotwire a car.'_ The roar of the engine was music to Caroline's ears.

Just as she's about to floor it, that smooth, confident voice rings out once more.

"The bullets are laced with werewolf venom. You'll be dead before…"

'_Whatever.'_ Caroline jams her foot onto the gas and surges forward. She is not spending another second listening to that bastard.

Shots ring out as she speeds ahead, most missing the BMW, as she drives erratically, barely able to see above the dashboard in her crouched position. Pedal to the metal, the BMW careens down a bumpy dirt road. Finally getting out of range of the gunshots, Caroline eases herself into the drivers seat and jams on her seatbelt. Reaching the end of the road, she eases off the gas and jerks the steering wheel hard to the right, tires squealing. She finds herself on a small paved road, quiet and secluded. But not 100 yards in front of her is a sign for the interstate. Pressing the gas to the floor once more, Caroline set off toward the highway.

* * *

Once she hit the interstate, Caroline knew she was home free. Well, free until the werewolf venom killed her anyway.

She stopped at a gas station, compelled a young man to give her his car and buy her a map and headed off to the only person she knew who could help her with her 'little werewolf venom problem'.

That he also happened to be partly responsible for her kidnapping didn't matter. Even the werewolf venom and her impending death weren't her top priority. No, Caroline knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she had to get home to him. She had to find him and tell him the secret was safe, that she hadn't betrayed his trust, and that she would never, ever, break her vow.

* * *

The last few hours had been pure agony.

Her shoulder felt like it was fire. She could no longer hold her left arm up and had to resort to driving with her right hand alone. Her vision was blurring, her head was foggy, and her temperature was rising. She was having trouble keeping a steady pressure on the accelerator and had almost gotten into an accident when her slow reflexes had almost not been able to apply the brake in time at the last intersection.

But she was almost there. She could smell the salt in the air and hear the jazz wafting on the breeze. House after beautiful house lay before her on a quiet residential street. There wasn't another car in sight.

She pulled up slowly to an intricately designed French style mansion. Tall, iron wrought gates blocked her entrance. Pulling up as close as she could get, she leaned to the side, sticking her head slightly out her window and smiled up toward a camera. Within moments, the gates began to open. Caroline inched the car forward along the arched driveway until she stopped in front of the grand double doors of the house. She sighed in relief. Home.

Caroline leaned back in the driver's seat, breathing deeply. And then the world went black.

Something, no someone, was touching her: the lightest caress on her cheek, brushing her hair off her face. She could feel arms around her and a solid body supporting her. And then the smell hit her nose: blood. Before she could even process, before her fangs could drop, a bleeding wrist was pushed into her mouth and the blood hit her tongue.

Caroline wasn't even sure she was still alive, but she was almost sure she moaned: in pleasure and relief. Only his blood tasted like this: aged like wine, mysteriously spicy, and pulsing with life.

"That's it, love" she hears him murmur. "Have at it."

If this were another time, one where she wasn't on the brink of death, she would have responded, teasingly, _'Reusing old lines, eh? Guess it's hard to come up with something original when you've known someone for 25 years.'_

Despite the pain, the fatigue, and the werewolf poison coursing through her, she almost smiles. Her eyes flutter open and her right hand reaches up to grasp his wrist, pushing it more firmly against her mouth as her fangs drop securely into his veins and draw out the life saving elixor that is his blood.

She hears his soft sigh and feels some of the tension leave his body as he continues to hold her as she feeds. His lips lightly brush against her ear and his stubbled chin brushes her neck.

After several minutes, she eases her lips away from his wrist and retracts her fangs. He gently lifts her body off of his, and lays her down completely in a large bed surrounded by pillows.

He seats himself on the edge of the bed, gazing down at her silently. She watches the emotions flicker in his eyes: concern, anger, fear, love.

Caroline reaches out toward him and covers his hand with hers.

"I didn't tell him anything." She tries to say it firmly, with confidence, but her voice sounds weak and hoarse.

"Caroline," he begins, a frown forming on his face, etching it with pain and sadness.

"That's what he wanted. To know where she was." Caroline keeps her eyes on him, as he lowers his head, refusing to meet her eyes. "I would never…" her throat tightens and she gulps, drawing his eyes back to her, "I would never tell, Klaus. Never. She's ours. Our secret. I swore…" Caroline can feel the sob catching in her throat and the tears beginning to fall down her cheeks.

"Shh, sweetheart." He whispers, leaning over her carefully and kissing away her tears. "You need to rest."

Caroline knows he is right. She can feel her eyelids sliding down, willing her to sleep.

"You believe me?" she asks as her eyes close.

"I believe you, love." He replies softly.

Just as she thinks he is done speaking and starts to drift to sleep she hears him, voice rough with pent up anger and emotion.

"And I will hunt down the bastards that did this to you. Every last one of them will suffer at my hands. I will not stop until their blood is spilt and their hearts are in my hands."

"I believe you." She murmurs, before finally drifting off to sleep.


End file.
